Colorado Study: Refugees Living in Cycle of Poverty

No! how can that be?

Over and over again the media spreads the gushing news (fed to it by the refugee industry) about how refugees benefit the economy by helping rebuild cities, paying taxes, and opening businesses (at faster rates than American slugs!).

So, how can refugees be living in a cycle of poverty?

They are, says the new study from the University of Colorado and guess what the answer is to lifting them out of poverty?  You guessed it!

Taxpayers need to pony-up and give them more financial support, build new housing for refugees and not make them go out and work menial jobs as soon as they get here.

Senators Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden designed the Refugee Act of 1980. They promised we wouldn’t be importing poverty! But, they knew that their industry pals needed cheap labor and that people in need of welfare vote for Democrats!

But, supplying cheap labor is why they are here in the first place especially in places like Colorado with its meat packing facilities dotting the state, and Big Meat’s voracious appetite for a steady supply of unskilled labor.

When now deceased Senator Ted Kennedy with the help of ‘Uncle Joe’ pushed through the Refugee Act of 1980  they promised we wouldn’t be importing poverty!  They lied.

Now to the news before my head explodes.

From KUNC:

Colorado’s Refugees Can Become Trapped In Chronic Poverty, Study Finds

(No kidding!)

Between the high cost of housing and shrinking federal funding for local organizations, many refugees resettled in Colorado find themselves stuck in chronic poverty. That’s according to new research from the University of Colorado Boulder, which studied refugee communities across the Front Range.

Xiaoling Chen, a geography doctoral student,wanted to understand why refugees became trapped in low-wage jobs, despite the state and federal resources intended to help them succeed.

The Refugee Industry will not be happy with Xiaoling Chen’s analysis that says refugees are trapped in poverty!

“So we (wanted) to find out why and in order to help the federal government address these challenges,” Chen said in a recent interview.

In her study, published this fall with support from the University of Colorado Denver, Chen explains that, despite their level of education or English proficiency, refugees in the US tend to have lower incomes compared to American born citizens; 50 percent of the refugees she surveyed said their first job in the US did not match their education level.

According to data from the Colorado Refugee Services Program, refugees in Colorado tend to find low-skill jobs in light manufacturing and hospitality, where they earn a monthly household income of around $700 to $999 in their first year.

By their fourth year, their earnings have hardly increased and many said it’s not enough to support their family.

In her research, Chen aimed to identify the barriers faced by refugees in their first eight months in Colorado. What she discovered is that the high cost of housing in cities like Denver have forced refugee agencies to get clients employed faster, often within their first three months in the US. Even though refugees are given financial assistance for the first eight months, those funds are quickly consumed by rent according to several agency workers interviewed for the study.

You can go read the complaints about the lack of taxpayer funding.  Then here (below) we see it is once again Trump’s fault.

Notice Chen does not clearly spell out the fact that the resettlement contractors are paid by the head to place refugees.

LOL! Larger budgets for the resettlement contractors doesn’t trickle down to refugees, but fuels fat cat salaries at the CEO level! The International Rescue Committee has offices in CO and its CEO is raking in a salary of over $900,000 a year. See here.

But, the mainstream media never reports on those exorbitant salaries.

KUNC continues….

Since Chen began her research in 2016, budgets for local refugee agencies have been further restricted as the overall number of refugee arrivals has plummeted under the Trump administration. For the year 2020, the annual cap was recently set at 18,000, the lowest number since the refugee program was created by congress in 1980. These restrictions have reportedly triggered layoffs while other agencies have closed down completely.

Among her policy recommendations, Chen suggests Colorado develop affordable housing for refugees and that the federal agency, Office for Refugee Resettlement, adjust the definition for “economic self-sufficiency***” to reflect actual living standards. In the end, said Chen, these investments would benefit everyone.

Really! Everyone! Even the taxpayers who must shell out more money to a program that already exceeds a billion dollars at the federal level and surely that much or more across 49 states.

“We can see that if the federal government and the state government can give more support to the resettlement community … those refugees can enrich the culture in the US and help to establish our economy,” Chen said.

“Enrich the culture!” “Establish our economy!”  Says who?  A PhD candidate at at Colorado University!  No wonder we are sick of the mainstream media!

Read it all.

Ms. Chen has confirmed what you knew intuitively—that refugees are not bringing economic boom times to your towns and cities!  Her prescription for solving the problem of refugee poverty, by throwing more of your hard earned money at it, must be resisted!

***You need to know that presently a refugee can be getting food stamps, housing help, medical care along with a low wage job and be considered “self sufficient” by the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement.  The contractors take every opportunity to tell the public the big lie—-that refugees are self-sufficient in only a few months.

 

Will the President Stand Firm on Determination to Admit 18,000 Refugees this Year?

Any day now, the Administration will send a delegation to the Hill to consult with the House and Senate Judiciary Committees on the President’s plan to admit a maximum number of 18,000 refugees to the US in FY2020 (the fiscal year began on October 1).

A reminder:  Trump set the level for FY19 at 30,000 and reached that ceiling on September 30th.  An 18,000 ceiling for FY20 would be the lowest in the program’s history.

Over the last couple of weeks there have been dozens and dozens of stories planted throughout America each one showcasing some poor refugee family that would not be reunited if the ceiling is that low.  And, without fail, the articles tell us which of the resettlement contractors had to close subcontractor offices.

Frankly I have read so many of these whiny stories I want to barf.  That said, I would like you to have a look at this one from Twin Falls, Idaho where the local resettlement subcontractor is expected to continue in operation for another year at least and my guess is that is in order to keep a refugee worker flow going to Chobani Yogurt.  See my Twin Falls archive here.

However, when quoting the director of the program there, the reporter, Megan Taros, says something that is not factually correct and I want to mention that to you:

A new executive order issued by President Trump last month that cuts the number of refugees the U.S. will accept from 30,000 to 18,000 this fiscal year threatens the center’s funding. The center receives federal money based on the number of people it takes in. With the new order its approved intake, which is now 140, may drop. Congress will meet on Tuesday to decide what the final nationwide cap on refugees will be.

Maybe the consultation will happen today as the reporter suggests, but Congress will NOT DECIDE ON THE FINAL NATIONWIDE CAP.  Congress’ only role under the Refugee Act of 1980 is a consultation role when it comes to setting the upcoming ceiling/cap (but of course they do appropriate the funding for the President’s plan).

That said, it will be interesting to see if over the last few weeks, the massive media PR campaign (like the one here in Twin Falls)  by the refugee industry has succeeded in getting the administration to up its original number of 18,000!

The article also reminded me to direct you to the Refugee Council USA‘s (lobbyists for the refugee industry) report which lists the subcontractor offices that have been closed since the Trump Administration began reducing the number of refugees being admitted.

Please take a minute and go here to see if an office has closed in your city.

Scroll down to page 23 to see the list.  Here is a screenshot of the first page:

Trump can’t do this alone!

If you want to see the Refugee Program dumped or reformed, you must get involved now where you live.  This is no time to sit back and assume the President is taking care of this.  The refugee industry is extremely well funded and has a massive media network.

As soon as the Trump Administration ends—it will sooner or later—they will be back full steam ahead and they have been laying the ground work with the sob-story news reports spread throughout small city newspapers everywhere.

One thing you can do right now is to send letters or opinion pieces to papers like this one to express the theme I think is most powerful—why aren’t we taking care of our own vulnerable people first?  After all, we the taxpayers are paying for all of this!  Use some statistics or sad stories about your community.

And, it goes without saying, you absolutely must attempt to elect people to local offices that represent your views on the subject of mass migration!  Start now by dogging candidates for the 2020 Elections and press them on their views on immigration!

 

Syracuse Letter Writer: Take Care of Americans First!

Easily the first question anyone asks who is hearing for the first time that we have admitted to the US, at great taxpayer expense, hundreds of thousands of refugees over the last four decades is this:

Why aren’t we taking care of our own vulnerable people first?

The other day when I said that we need a grassroots group called ‘Migration Moratorium Now!’ I figure the subtitle would be something like this: ‘Take Care of Americans First!’

And, that is the gist of this letter, thanks to reader Joanne for sharing it, at Syracuse.com:

Syracuse is falling apart, and Mayor Walsh’s priority is refugees?

The writer, Paul Strail, is responding to a lengthy opinion piece written by the latest liberal mayor of Syracuse, Ben Walsh, with the help of Michael Melara executive director of Catholic Charities of Onondaga County.

Here is just a bit of Mr. Strail’s response to the mayor:

Mayor Ben Walsh establishing his bonafides as an Anti-Trump liberal.

The Post-Standard recently reported that Syracuse is still one of the poorest cities in the country. Nevertheless, Mayor Ben Walsh wrote in your paper that President Donald Trump was wrong to limit the number of refugees that the United States could allow (“Dear President Trump, Syracuse wants refugees,” Sept. 26, 2019).

This seems like a strange priority for Walsh to stake out, especially because his city is falling apart . At times, there seem to be homeless men and women panhandling on every street corner. Many of these folks are veterans.

[….]

The murder rate in Syracuse is too high. Academic achievement in the city schools is too low. So, when the mayor should be focused on meeting the many vital needs of his own city, he has to let everyone know that his real concern lies in preventing Trump from restricting the flow of foreign refugees into his city. How that misguided priority will help improve the crime rate, boost academic achievement in the schools, elevate the standard of living of the city’s poor and homeless, and give struggling homeowners some kind of tax relief, is anyone’s guess.

The truth is that Syracuse’s reputation as a sanctuary city must be maintained if Walsh hopes to win the support (and donations) of enough liberal Democrats in the next election. Loudly criticizing the president is the best way to do that. The suggestion that the president must hate refugees because he is an extraordinary bigot is the means by which Walsh is feeding red meat to Syracuse’s Trump-haters.

I dare not copy any more of it, please read Mr. Strail’s sensible analysis.

One thing that the refugees of Syracuse have done is to turn this Catholic Church into a mosque. Read about how the crosses were removed and how there was to be no media coverage of the conversion. https://www.syracuse.com/news/2015/08/from_church_to_mosque_syracuse_islamic_group_cuts_crosses_tries_to_connect_to_ne.html

One of the first things I would ask the mayor is this: Since Syracuse has ‘welcomed’ 10,000 refugees to the city over a recent ten year period, where is the proof that they have revitalized the city?

Indeed are they still there, or like the Bosnians who supposedly helped boost the economy of St. Louis have they moved out of a city run by progressive politicians?

Amazing how either people don’t read, or have very short memories.

In 2015 we reported on a story from the Atlantic about how Syracuse is falling into perpetual poverty as its poorer sections become poorer with the importation of already impoverished refugees!

I call this illogical argument—that refugees bring economic boom times to struggling cities—the big lie!

Idaho Refugee Sob Story Sounds Fishy to me!

My alerts are filled to the brim day after day with stories from around the US featuring a sob story for some refugee who won’t be able to reunite with a family member because there is a meany in the White House.

Inevitably a sad tale anchors a story which tells readers in a state—in this case Idaho—about how bad the Trump Administration’s proposed refugee ceiling of 18,000 is going to be on the refugee resettlement industry that derives most of its funding from the taxpayer—from you and me.

At least this story does mention the fact that federal funding is tied to the number of refugees admitted. But, I got a laugh when I saw that the report from Idaho Press uses the International Rescue Committee as the example of an agency singing the budgetary blues.

Heck! The IRC’s head honcho makes nearly a $1 million a year salary—a figure that has jumped at least a quarter of a million since Trump took office!

They simply can’t be that bad off!

Idaho IRC Director Tzul. https://www.eyeonsunvalley.com/Story_Reader/4359/Photographs-Chronicle-New-Step-for-Refugees/

The IRC’s Idaho representative Julianne Tzul told the Idaho Press:

Much of IRC’s funding comes from federal grants based on the number of refugees it serves, and Tzul expects to have “a wild ride to plan a budget when you don’t know if a major (funding) component is zero or is healthy.”

Still, Tzul said the agency has “no intention of going away.”

But, that isn’t the part that I want to tell you about.  It is the part about their featured Iraqi refugee sob story.

(Virtually every article I’ve read in recent days features some family that has been separated.  Instructions must have gone out to every resettlement office in America to find a family separation story to feed to the local press!).

Here is the headline of this one from Idaho:

What new refugee limit could mean for the Treasure Valley

 

BOISE — Under the Trump’s administration’s latest cap on refugee resettlement, Idaho refugees who have been separated from their families will likely have to wait longer to be reunited, and local resettlement agencies are expecting a dip in federal funding.

“We are going to see fewer refugees make it to Boise,” said Julianne Tzul, director of International Rescue Committee’s Boise office. “When total national numbers contract, they contract everywhere.”

The Trump administration last week announced an 18,000 cap on the number of refugees resettled in the U.S. this fiscal year, which started Tuesday. Trump’s final decision on the cap must include consultation with Congress, which could push for a higher total, according to the Associated Press.

Ahmed Al Abboodi wants his son to join him in Idaho, but Trump is standing in the way.

The historically low cap would affect people like Ali Al Abboodi, a 28-year-old from Baghdad who was separated from his family in 2014 while they were traveling to Boise to be resettled. His family has worked with U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, in trying to secure his entry into the U.S.

.[….]

After seven years in Syria, the family moved back to Iraq to await permission to become refugees in the United States. They received refugee status and flew to Boise in January 2014. Ali Al Abboodi’s case was separated from the rest of his family, but the plan was he would follow the family to Boise a few days later.

I want to know why wasn’t he with the family as they were shuffling around between Syria and Iraq?  Why was his case separated as the family left for Boise?

And then this: Are we really expected to believe that someone just dying to be reunited with his family in the US missed TWO scheduled flights that would take him to America?

Idaho Press continues….

Republican Senator Crapo to the rescue!

Ali Al Abboodi missed his first flight because of traffic and missed his second because of a car wreck, according to the family. After that, his case for refugee status was closed.

In 2017, Trump restricted travel from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Iraq, further hindering Ali Al Abboodi’s ability to travel to the U.S.

Ahmed Al Abboodi did not let the travel bans stop him from trying to get his son to Boise. He met with Crapo with his caseworker, and urged the senator to help his family. Crapo helped reopen Ali Al Abboodi’s case for refugee status.

What do you think?  I’m thinking there is more to this story than we are being told!

More here.

See my ever-expanding archive on ‘welcoming’ Idaho by clicking here.

Police: Somalis Brawling in St. Cloud, MN High School (All one race involved)

Editor:  This is a cross post from my other blog ‘Frauds and Crooks.’

When the news broke a couple of days ago that Tech High in St. Cloud, MN was in the news again there was no information on who exactly was brawling in the school. I didn’t post the story here at RRW because we didn’t know if Somali refugees were involved.  Now we know….

The new $104 million Tech High has only been open for a few weeks. https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/09/23/st-clouds-new-tech-high-school-opens-with-big-labs-big-tech-and-an-eye-toward-the-future

 

Whew! That is a relief!  At least now there won’t be any reason for race hustlers like CAIR to get involved, right!

“Students of the same race.”  That is how police characterize the make-up of the gangs of fighting students we reported here on Thursday.  But thanks to a Minnesota law which allows names of those who committed felonies, who are aged 16 and 17, be made public, we now have a clearer idea of who exactly was involved in a brawl that brought 20 police officers to a school in a city that has seen years of tension created by the arrival of Somali refugee families.

No secret decoder ring needed—names tell us all we need to know!

(See my extensive St. Cloud file at Refugee Resettlement Watchhere. I first heard of Tech High Somali problems in this story from 2008. A few posts featuring St. Cloud are here at ‘Frauds and Crooks.‘)

Go here to ‘Frauds and Crooks’ to read the full story and see the names of some of the students charged with felonies.  Some Tech High staff were injured trying to break up the fighting gangs.